ETown makes progress in future technologies

A passenger gets in a self-driving taxi in Beijing in October. REN CHAO/XINHUA

A self-driving taxi took a passenger on a 6-kilometer journey in early November, one of many such tests currently taking place in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing ETown. The taxi cannot only recognize surrounding road conditions, but also change lanes and alter speed according to different scenarios.

Autonomous vehicles are among the 10 applications of new-generation artificial intelligence that Beijing ETown launched in late October.

Other fields include smart factories and campuses, warehousing and banking services.

The area is promoting an AI innovation system involving policies, industries, universities, research and its applications, helping apply related technologies to production and daily lives.

Beijing has carried out safe road tests of self-driving vehicles extending more than 2 million km from March 2018, when the city issued the first temporary license plates for such tests.

The city has issued 432 test plates to autonomous vehicles from 14 companies such as BAIC BJEV, new energy carmaker Baidu, and Daimler.

Beijing boasts nearly 1,200 AI enterprises, the most when compared with other cities nationwide. Many companies and corporate founders come from nationally noted scientific research organizations and universities.

Local officials said the training of top professionals is significant for the growth of AI companies, and can help in creating breakthroughs in original technologies. Having a reserve of professionals has become an important indicator of a region's AI competitiveness.

Beijing's reserve accounted for 27.9 percent of the total nationally in 2019, according to a Shenzhen-headquartered industry research institute. Eleven universities in Beijing have been approved by the Ministry of Education to establish AI programs.

Statistics from the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence recently showed that China is home to about 67,000 AI professionals and nearly 40,000 are in Beijing, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Huang Wei, CEO of AI company Unisound, said: "We grew up on the entrepreneurship soil of Beijing, especially Zhongguancun, and the city has an ambience of taking pride in innovation.

"Beijing boasts professionals, capital and policies that AI startups need and the government offers several kinds of AI application settings."

Liu Hang, a member of the administrative committee of Zhongguancun Science Park, said at a recent 5G competition that the park has made progress in 5G and will support the development of key technologies in fields including chips.

The park has accumulated experience in setting 5G standards, technological research and development and industrial cooperation in recent years. Xiaomi and Lenovo have launched several kinds of 5G cellphones and smart home devices.

Gu Jinxu, chief engineer of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology, said at a 5G forum in October that Beijing had built 44,000 5G base stations by the end of August and planned to finish the construction of 50,000 such stations by the end of 2020.

Beijing is also focused on the development of blockchain technology. It will release several measures for its sub-city center to promote financial development. The center in Tongzhou district will explore the application of blockchain in fields such as supply chain finance, fund supervision and cross-region and trans-department government data sharing.

songmengxing@chinadaily.com.cn